Children at Worship often receives emails such as the one below, and we try to respond to each. The letter that follows was written in response to a suggestion to peruse our website. We'd like to open this conversation, though, using this particular comment as a launching point. Let us know, is this your experience? Have you been able to make a difference? Is anyone listening?
When I looked at it at first I felt excited, then despairing. At our
church very well-intentioned ushers 'remind' parents who are bringing their
young children into the service that we have a nursery. Most of our kids
under 8 don't come to the service until communion. I would love to change this,
but I don't know where or how to begin. My responsibility is for the kids'
program during the Sunday school hour; I believe that any suggestions
that I made for changes in the service would not be well-received.
3 comments:
Hi whoever you are!
We have had a similar problem in our church, made worse by a previous 'regime' that allowed kids to run wild- which kind of built up the resistance to allowing kids to be kids. I learned a lot from our primary school, where freedom with discipline creates a loving, exciting and learning environment. So why not in church??
On the communion issue, we give our kids bread and a grape. It 'keeps the rules' viz a viz our Anglican tradition but boy, do our kids feel included in the communion serivice.
(I'm a pastor in an English Anglican church BTW)
Lucky for us, our rector believes in church being a place for everyone. He read "Children at Worship" and has asked me to work with a committee to make some changes to the more contemporary service. The main thing you want to communicate and accomplish is that you want a worship service that meets the needs of all the members of the parish, adults and children. If all you have is a children's sermon, that doesn't meet adults' needs. If you have a sermon that really engages both ages, THEN you are getting somewhere. You can start with small things, like including children in handing out bulletins, bringing up the offeratory, or "setting the table" during the offeratory as our children do every week (they carry the elements from the credence table to the altar, then hold them while the deacon takes each one, names them, and says a little something about the bread and wine while the adults sing). From there, if you can go to an adult ed class and share prayers from children, it might open them up to the amazing spiritual lives of children. The Center for Children and Theology, www.cctheo.org for children's responses, and the lessons from Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, www.cgsusa.org, have been deeply engaging to adults and children alike. Molly Reingruber, St. Philip's Episcopal, Durham, NC
Many of our pastors stick to the book and do not innovate worship in ways that include non-readers and the antsy. When the services are not revamped to be more inclusive, I think ushers can be proactive and alert parents that a nursery is available. Some children cannot endure an entire Episcopal worship service and may need that nursery. The others in the pew may expect parents of little ones that are disruptive to take advantage of the nursery as well. We teach in our nursery. It's a great place for families, too. We often have a picnic and celebrate a feast together. Nurseries can support ministry to young families, too!
Betsy LaVela
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